Differences Between Democrats: Another Look at the Minimum Wage Votes

The Mass. Senate’s passage of “An Act to Restore the Minimum Wage” is so far a high point in this legislative session, and illustrates the power of grassroots organizing to spur legislative action: the minimum wage hadn’t been changed by the Legislature in 7 years, until hundreds of thousands of citizens signed Raise Up Mass petitions and hundreds of volunteers across the Commonwealth mobilized to get it done.

In our earlier post, we outlined the ways in which this was a good vote, and highlighted the disappointments in the passage of the final bill. But as always with the Massachusetts Legislature, there’s much more to be seen when you start to peel back the layers and look not only at the final passage of a bill, but also at the AMENDMENT process. And the Minimum Wage bill’s amendments votes are illuminating, showing stark differences between Democrats.

Although only 4 Democrats voted against the final passage of the “Act to Restore the Minimum Wage,” -- before the final vote, 9 Democrats voted to make the bill much weaker, and 26 Democrats passed on an opportunity to make the bill stronger and better (names and details below).

Warning. The details (after the flip) are dense and may be of interest only to the true politics-n-policy nerds.

But the bottom line is important, and it is this: embedded in the dense/confusing amendment process, legislators often have opportunities to push for better bills/policy--and much worse ones. It is in inspecting these details that we can see why it is supposedly liberal Massachusetts has been passing, or coming close to passing, some really bad legislation (punitive welfare ‘reforms,’ three strikes prison ‘reforms,’ inadequate investment in our communities, weak election reform).

In assessing our electeds, and pushing for a more progressive Massachusetts, it's imperative to take note where senators choose to stand: who pushed for more, who pushed for less. And it’s important to remember -- these differences between Democrats are often (by design?) obscured in final passage votes, and buried deep within a complicated journey before the bill becomes a law.

We offer post-vote analyses like this to bring these differences to light, and collect them in our legislator scorecards for future reference.

BOTTOM LINE -- WHO PUSHED FOR MORE? WHO PUSHED FOR LESS? (more details after the flip)

Sen. Pacheco, in a vigorous floor speech that referenced the vast public support for Raise Up MA, introduced Amendment 1.1, to raise the tipped wage to 60% of the minimum wage -- (at the same rate as the Raise Up ballot proposal). [++]

In turn, Sen. Tarr introduced Amendment 1.2, to only raise the tipped wage to 35% of the minimum wage (15% less than Sen. Wolf’s amendment, 25% less than Sen. Pacheco’s amendment and the Raise Up proposal). [-]

When the minimum wage remains static, it loses value every day, due to the slow but unstoppable rise of inflation (costs rise, but the minimum wage stays the same) [-].

The minimum wage has not been changed since 2008, inexorable losing value over 5 years [-].

“Indexing to inflation” would make automatic increases to the minimum wage, every year, at the same rate of inflation, meaning the wage would not lose that value over time [+].

Keeping minimum wage increases tied to inflation would also avoid the need for steep adjustments every few years -- which is more difficult for businesses to absorb than small incremental increases every year [+].

O’Connor Ives introduced Amendment 12, proposing to only raise the minimum wage to $9 -- keeping the wage well below the 1968 purchasing power [-].

O’Connor Ives’s amendment would also strip “indexing” from the bill: again leaving the wage subject to incremental loss in value -- decreasing the poor’s purchasing power year by year [-].

Did your Senator vote to reduce this long-overdue increase in the minimum wage? Did your Senator vote to let the minimum wage continue to lose value over time, by decoupling automatic future increases from inflation? [SEE CHART]

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There is more to learn about the impediments to progress and the workings of power in the legislature, by looking further at the minimum wage vote. We hope to get to that, in an upcoming blog post. Stay tuned.